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. 2023 Feb 10:17:535-543.
doi: 10.2147/OPTH.S395877. eCollection 2023.

Microbiological Profile of Infectious Keratitis During Covid-19 Pandemic

Mário Lima-Fontes  1   2 , Daniel Martinho-Dias  3   4   5 , Mariana Leuzinger-Dias  1 , Ana Maria Cunha  1 , Pedro Neves Cardoso  1 , Luís Torrão  1 , Raúl Moreira  1 , Fernando Falcão-Reis  1   6 , João Pinheiro-Costa  1   6
Affiliations

Microbiological Profile of Infectious Keratitis During Covid-19 Pandemic

Mário Lima-Fontes et al. Clin Ophthalmol. .

Abstract

Purpose: The Covid-19 pandemic introduced significant changes in our daily life, including the widespread use of face masks. The purpose of this study was to assess if significant changes occurred in the microbiological profile of infectious keratitis.

Patients and methods: A retrospective study was performed, based on a survey review of the electronic medical records of all patients with presumed infectious keratitis, between March 2020 and October 2021. The microbiological isolates in this sample (pandemic group) were compared with those obtained in our center between 2009 and 2018 (pre-pandemic group).

Results: A total of 194 samples were included in the pandemic group. We obtained a culture-positivity rate of 43.3%, which was significantly higher when compared with the pre-pandemic data (35.15%, p = 0.033). Several further significant differences were found between the pandemic and the pre-pandemic groups: the proportion of bacteria, including gram-positive and gram-negative groups, was higher in our sample (pre-pandemic vs pandemic: 76.78% vs 83.33%, p = 0.010; 53.35% vs 60.71%, p = 0.016; 23.43% vs 34.52%, p = 0.005, respectively); two populations of Gram-positive bacteria found in this study were not isolated in the pre-pandemic sample - Dolosigranulum pigrum and Propionibacterium spp.; and two bacterial isolates were significantly increased in our sample - Corynebacterium spp. (18.41% vs 29.76%, p = 0.003) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (9.00% vs 16.66%, p = 0.012).

Conclusion: In conclusion, significant changes were found in the microbiological profile of infectious keratitis in our center during the Covid-19 pandemic. While these changes could be related to face mask use, more observational and experimental studies are needed to explore this possible association.

Keywords: Covid-19; face mask; infectious keratitis; microbiology.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Distribution of microbial profile in corneal scrapes in the pandemic sample.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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